BT to end traffic throttling - claims capacity is FAT

BT has claimed that it will kill off traffic management on its broadband service and stop capping usage limits on all but its entry-level products.

From now until early June, its "Totally Unlimited Broadband" offering will be applied to BT's 16Mbps copper service for £16 a month, while Infinity customers can get their mitts on it for between £23 and £26 a month depending on the downstream speeds offered on their broadband subscriptions.

But existing customers have to rip up old contracts and sign new ones that run for 18 months.

The national telco claimed that its offering would not be hampered by bandwidth issues like the ones that recently crippled BSkyB.

BT's consumer managing director John Petter put the boot into all the company's rivals with this lovely statement delivered straight from the heart:

We believe we have boosted our broadband offering by moving our best broadband deals to totally unlimited. Customers told us that they wanted to be able to enjoy catch-up TV, streamed films and other bandwidth-eating applications without having to worry about going over their limit or being slowed down by their ISP.

But we wanted to make that really affordable too, without the sort of traffic management Virgin Media, TalkTalk or EE customers may find themselves subject to. Unlike Sky, we’re extremely confident that our network can stand up to the extra bandwidth demands from totally unlimited products everywhere across the UK.

BT's entry level broadband packages that won't be part of the "Totally Unlimited" offering are the basic one that costs £13 a month and Infinity 1, which has a £18 monthly price tag.

BT also said it would begin offering its customers an online storage service with free allowance for broadband subscribers, but that's not unlimited.

Infinity customers supposedly enjoying download speeds of up to 76Mbit/s will be granted a 50GB limit on the service. BT didn't say what allowance punters on more lowly packages can expect to receive, however.

The company reckoned it was the ahead of its competitors in the broadband biz by offering such a cloudy service. ®